Working together to understand , bring awareness and help to those victims of Earth’s Natural Dynamic of Change and Cleansing in her eternal voyage though the galaxy and prepare ourselves for the coming events…

Monday, August 13, 2012

Kim Dotcom, owner of file-sharing website Megaupload.com, saw his mansion in Auckland, New Zealand, raided by antiterrorist police supported by helicopters in January. It now appears the raid was so massive because the FBI told New Zealand police that Dotcom had a "doomsday device" capable of destroying evidence worldwide.

At first, it was hard to understand exactly why officials believed such a massive display of force was necessary. After all, the FBI had already seized his servers and shut down his websites. However, the alleged doomsday device appears to have been the reason the FBI and New Zealand police responded so strongly.

Detective Inspector Grant Wormald, who was in charge of the operation at the behest of the Organized and Financial Crime Agency, or Ofcanz, was informed by the FBI that Dotcom "carried a device with him to delete servers around the world," according to the New Zealand Herald.

The alleged doomsday device -- so-called by Paul Davidson, Dotcom's lawyer -- was purportedly able to destroy evidence on any of Dotcom's computers worldwide within seconds and could be triggered from a number of places throughout Dotcom's property.

A device of that nature was not found at Dotcom's mansion, although speculation about the device led to New Zealand's special-tactics group becoming involved with the raid.

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The January raid of Dotcom's mansion was captured on video, with the footage leaking online this week. Footage of the raid shows at least 30 New Zealand police officers storming Dotcom's house, backed by several helicopters and police dogs.

Davidson has strongly criticized the New Zealand police's actions and motives in the raid, especially since no such doomsday device was ever found.

"What this comes down to is a woefully incompetent and inept performance by the New Zealand police at all stages and at all levels of this operation," Davidson told the New Zealand Herald. "Those responsible for planning are shown to be deficient in their judgment to a serious degree."

On Tuesday, Dotcom, 38, testified in court that he was beaten by police during the raid. There were conflicting reports by authorities about his behavior during the arrest, with one special-tactics group member saying he was cooperative and one armed-offenders squad member saying he was belligerent.

"None of us punched him in the face," a New Zealand armed-offender's squad member testified in Auckland High Court on Tuesday. However, the officer added, "I saw another officer walk by and inadvertently step on his hand."

The testimony came on the second day of a hearing on Dotcom's bid to reclaim all 135 of his computers and hard drives, which he said he needs to defend himself in court.

A Businessman from Yiwu, China recently unveiled his disaster survival invention labeled as “China’s Noah’s Ark.” However, the other side is labeled “Atlantis” which makes me wonder about his knowledge of ancient myths.

Although it lacks the sleek design of the original ark, this orange ball is claimed to be shock-proof, water-proof, fire-proof, and radiation-proof.

This ball, sometimes referred to as a shelter, was unveiled in a demonstration conducted on August 6. A series of abusive tests were performed, with the inventor Yangzong Fu inside, to show us just how tough this thing is.

First it was rolled down a 50 meter high cliff where it seemed to have suffered some denting, but the man inside was unharmed. It was then lit on fire.

The ball is 4 meters in diameter and weighs 6 tons, but is said to be able to float on water.It’s equipped with a safety seat, monitoring system, ventilation, and toilet functionality making it completely habitable, all for the low low price of 1,500,000 yuan (US$236,000).

Before you go considering this investment, there are some odd things going on with this demonstration you may want to think about. While the ball is 4 meters across the ball in the photo is clearly about 1m in diameter. Of course they probably just used a scale model to save, uh, fire.

And although the guy inside was okay, he’s also wearing riot gear and looking inside the hatch he appears to be surrounded by weird springs. It kind of looks like he’s rooming with H.R. Giger’s Alien in there.

Finally, when it comes to radiation-proof, you can trust that guarantee only as much as the person you’re buying it from. So give it some good thought before buying your own Noah’s Ark.

Who knows? If you’re right, you could be sitting pretty at the end of the world while I’m falling 50 meters to a fiery, watery, radioactive death.

The recent uptick in tropical activity brings the Western Pacific tropical cyclone season back up to average after a slow start. But several recent flash-flooding events from higher-than-normal seasonal rainfall in southern Japan, as well as North Korea, have left soils full of moisture and vulnerable to additional flooding if typhoons and tropical storms track their way.

This is a very real threat as the Western Pacific tropical season runs year-round, but has a seasonal peak around September, mirroring the tropical Atlantic. We will likely see more flooding disasters around East Asia over the next couple of months as the tropics heat up and cyclones traverse these hard-hit areas from the Philippines all the way to North Korea.

The increased activity always has people wondering: Is this all a coincidence or is something else going on here?

We always say that global warming or climate change does not explain, or cause, specific weather events or disasters. But one of the consequences of climate change, according to climate scientists, is a higher frequency of extreme rainfall events. A warmer climate results in more moisture in the atmosphere from evaporation, and thus, higher rainfall amounts are possible in storms.

Could this be what we are seeing? Perhaps, especially considering we have not seen an increase in the number of tropical storms or typhoons over the past several years, but the number of intense flooding scenarios seem to be in the rise.

Typhoon Haikui slammed into the east coast of China on Wednesday morning, pummeling the area around the business metropolis of Shanghai with heavy wind and rain.

The storm's winds were at "severe typhoon" strength when it made landfall in the province of Zhejiang, about 225 kilometers (140 miles) south of Shanghai, the China Meteorological Administration said. The winds diminished to typhoon strength as Haikui moved inland.

A landslide in the Manila suburb of Quezon City buried two houses, leaving nine people dead and four others injured, according to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Center.Three of the dead were children, the state-run Philippines News Agency reported.

The country's weather service - the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration - warned the Manila region's 12 million residents of continued torrential rains and serious flooding through Wednesday.

"It's like a water world," Benito Ramos, head of the disaster agency, said of the city, according to PNA.

The heavy monsoon rains have inundated the island of Luzon, where Manila is situated. The downpours are expected to continue into Wednesday, PAGASA said, warning that landslides and flash floods were likely in mountainous areas.

The intense rainfall is a result of a strong southwest monsoon being enhanced by the presence of Tropical Storm Haikui, to the north of the Philippines.

The strong and moisture-laden circulation around the tropical storm is fueling the monsoon which is in place over the northern Philippines. The mountainous terrain of Luzon further increases the rainfall, and makes for an area susceptible to flooding and mudslides.

The flooding has forced more than 780,000 people across the country from their homes, the disaster agency said. About 242,000 were staying in emergency shelters Tuesday night, according to the agency.

The Philippines had been lashed by heavy rain and wind in recent weeks resulting from Tropical Storm Saola, which plowed past the country before hitting Taiwan and China at the end of last week. The combination of Saola and monsoon rains had left a total of 53 people dead in the Philippines by Tuesday morning, according to the disaster council.

And the effects of the monsoon are being exacerbated by Typhoon Haikui, which is moving toward the eastern coast of China, hundreds of kilometers to the north.

The United Nations declared the situation in North Korea an emergency Thursday after torrential rain soaked the country between July 18 and 29. Eighty-eight people have died, a U.N. report said, though national media put the toll at 169.

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Heavy rains have flooded a portion of the Philippine capital, resulting in a landslide that has killed at least nine people.

By Hrvoje Hranjski, Associated Press / August 7, 2012

A boy wades waist-deep in floodwaters as he collects plastic scraps, to be sold, in Quezon City Metro Manila August 6. Classes were suspended while hundreds of families, fearing massive floods as water level in dams rose due to heavy rain, were evacuated, local media reported.

Relentless rains submerged half of the sprawling Philippine capital, triggered a landslide that killed nine people and sent emergency crews scrambling Tuesday to rescue tens of thousands of residents who called media outlets pleading for help.

The deluge, the worst since 2009 when hundreds died in rampaging flash floods, was set off by the seasonal monsoon that overflowed major dams and rivers inManila and surrounding provinces.

The capital and other parts of the country already were saturated from last week's Typhoon Saola, which battered Manila and the north for several days before blowing away Friday. That storm was responsible for at least 53 deaths.

"It's like a water world," said Benito Ramos, head of the government's disaster response agency. He said the rains flooded 50 percent of metropolitan Manila on Monday evening, and about 30 percent remained under waist- or neck-deep waters Tuesday.

He urged residents in areas prone to landslides and floods to stay in evacuation centers. Because the soil is saturated, even a little rain could be dangerous, he added.

"Now that it's getting dark, I would like to repeat, if the rains are heavy you should be at the evacuation centers," he said, warning that rescue operations are more difficult at night and could put responders at risk.

Manila's weather bureau said a tropical storm off eastern China had intensified monsoon rains in the Philippines, which were forecast to last until Thursday.

In Manila's suburban Quezon City, a landslide hit a row of shanties perched below a hill, burying nine people, according to Ramos.

Army troops and police dug frantically to save those buried, including four children, as surviving relatives and neighbors wept. All the victims were recovered, some whose bodies were found near an entombed shanty's door as they apparently tried to flee.

"My wife, children and grandchild are down there," a drenched Jessie Bailon told The Associated Press while watching rescuers dig into a muddy mound where his shanty once stood.

National police chief Nicanor Bartolome went to the scene and ordered all other slum dwellers to be evacuated from the still-soggy area.

TV footage showed rescuers dangling on ropes to bring children and other residents to safety from flooded houses across the city. Many residents trapped in their homes called radio and TV stations desperately asking for help.

"We need to be rescued," Josephine Cruz told DZMM radio as water rose around her house in Quezon City, saying she was trapped in her two-story house with 11 other people, including her 83-year-old mother. "We can't get out because the floodwaters are now higher than people."

ABC-CBN TV network reported receiving frantic calls from people whose relatives were trapped in the deluge, many without food since Tuesday morning. They included a pregnant woman with a baby who wanted to be rescued from a roof and about 55 people who scrambled to the third floor of a Quezon city house as water rose below them.

Vehicles and even heavy trucks struggled to navigate water-clogged roads, where hundreds of thousands of commuters were stranded. Many cars were stuck in the muddy waters.

The government suspended work and classes Tuesday and Wednesday. Some shopping malls opened with limited grocery supplies that were quickly picked up by shoppers waiting in long lines.

The La Mesa dam, which supplies water to the capital of 12 million people, spilled excess water early Tuesday into the rivers flowing into Quezon City, as well as the neighborhoods of Malabon, Valenzuela and Caloocan, where several villages were submerged.

Along the swollen Marikina River, nearly 20,000 residents have been moved away from the riverbanks but many others asked to be rescued. Mayor Del de Guzman pleaded for patience and said overwhelmed rescue teams would try to reach everyone.

President Benigno Aquino III called an emergency meeting of Cabinet officials and disaster-response agencies. He ordered officials to make sure all residents were accounted for in flooded villages and discussed how flooded hospitals could be helped in case they were hit by power outages.

The Philippine Stock Exchange in the flooded financial district of Makati was closed. Also closed was the U.S. Embassy along Manila Bay in the historic old city, which was flooded last week when a storm surge pushed the water over the seawall.

In 2009, massive flooding spawned by a typhoon devastated Manila and surrounding areas, killing hundreds. The state weather bureau said that the current flooding was not as severe and that the weather may start to improve later this week.

About Me

Prof. Muse Tegegne has lectured sociology Change & Liberation in Europe, Africa and Americas. He has obtained Doctorat es Science from the University of Geneva. A PhD in Developmental Studies & ND in Natural Therapies. He wrote on the problematic of the Horn of Africa extensively. He Speaks Amharic, Tigergna, Hebrew, English, French. He has a good comprehension of Arabic, Spanish and Italian.